Sunday, September 19, 2010

over the summer, i met my friend kim for lunch at a newer restaurant in the river market called the farmhouse. i hadn't heard of it before, but was exited when the website said it focused on using crops from local farmers. yay - sustainable and responsible food love! i knew they'd be great for a vegetarian which usually means you can veganize quite a bit.

after i sat down, the server came over and i asked about a particular beer. there were only like ten to choose from, but the server didn't seem to know anything about it. i thought this was odd, since when i walked in he was actually behind the bar, but really not a big deal. i ended up getting the beer and started to ask about the egg and dairy content of a couple items. to my surprise, there weren't a lot of vegetarian options and only one could be made vegan (besides the salad). isn't this a farmer based restaurant? oh well, the one item i could have was the chickpea fritters (minus the parmasean), although the garlic aioli sauce had mayonnaise. i asked about the different salad dressings, thinking i could sub one of them for the aioli. no dice. every dressing had eggs or cream in it! i finally relented and just figured i could live with the herb oil that they are drizzled with. when my chickpea fritters finally arrived (they took forever!), they had the pamesean shavings and the aioli served on the side to boot. after pointing out the issues, he took them back and later came back with non-cheese fitters, but also brought me a new side of aioli. i guess you could say he didn't get it.

the fritters were okay. kim had a blt, and said it was okay, but wasn't a stand out sammie. it looks like the menu will change based on seasonal produce, but i wouldn't go in thinking they have a lot of vegan options. and maybe my server was just having a bad day, but this visit certainly didn't entice me to go back. which is too bad, really, because i'm all about supporting local farmers. maybe i'll give it another shot, but based on this experience, i have to give it two stars.